Vanity: Jeff Ayers on Jeff Ayers’ job. 26 minutes of me pontificating upon the vagaries of NYC comic retail on the hottest day in recorded NYC history. In reality I know the difference between Detective Comics #27 and #37 and tensile and tactile. Saw a doctor and got rid of it.

Totally meant to publish this yesterday at the height of its relevancy, but congratulations and happy 5th anniversary to Joe Gordon and the rest of our colleagues at the Forbidden Planet International Blog!!!

It’s hard for me to believe but today marks the fifth birthday of the Forbidden Planet blog. It’s a peculiar feeling because in one way it doesn’t really feel like it’s been five years since I posted that first blog item but on the other hand it also feels like we’ve been a part of the comics and SF scene for years. Good god – we have! Five years back as we were fading from winter into early spring we were waiting for the UK release of Sin City, rumours were rife Joss Whedon was about to announce he was doing a Wonder Woman film and Christopher Eccleston was the Doctor as the world’s longest running science fiction show returned triumphantly to our screens. Now it’s five years and two regeneration later and here we are; the blog has regenerated a bit itself, changing format and design and new cast members have walked into the console room to join us for our travels through time, space and sequential art (or comics, as normally call them) and add their very welcome voices.

The folks across the pond put a lot of time and energy into what was recently ranked by media company Cision high in the top 50 of all UK blogs. They really do a crackin good job and feature many an interesting morsel. I encourage you to check them out often. Personally, I’ve got them on my RSS toolbar.

Joe Gordon, he of the fantastic Forbidden Planet International Blog, has photos and video up this morning from the Edinburgh store’s signing with Amanda Palmer. You might remember Amanda from such books as, Who Killed Amanda Palmer, a collaborative photo book featuring Neil Gaiman and a host of other talented folks.

We had a great turnout for Amanda Palmer’s visit to the Edinburgh FPI store. Edinburgh right now is in its annual Festival mode — basically the biggest arts festival in the world is running here and if you’ve never experienced it you’d struggle to imagine how insanely busy it is here right now. Its mad, its crowded but there’s a great buzz on the streets and yesterday we added to the crowds and the energy with a great line of folks waiting in the sun to come in and see Amanda, who entertained us all with a suitably sc-fi-themed song on her ukulele to kick off proceedings.